First case of ultrasonic 'distress call' by Brazilian frog species documented in new study

New Delhi, A new study claims to have documented the "first" case of an ultrasonic 'distress call' made by a Brazilian frog species' for self-defence. HT Image While humans would be incapable of hearing this scream, researchers said the distress call had an "ear-piercing intensity" for many animals, including predators of amphibians such as bats, rodents and small primates all of which can emit and hear sounds in the ultrasonic range. "One of our hypotheses is that the distress call is addressed to some of these, but it could also be the case that the broad frequency band is generalist in the sense that it's supposed to scare as many predators as possible," said the study's author Ubiratã Ferreira Souza, from the State University of Campinas Institute of Biology, São Paulo, Brazil. "In light of the fact that amphibian diversity in Brazil is the highest in the world, with more than 2,000 species described, it wouldn't be surprising to find that other frogs also emit sounds at these frequencies," said Mariana Retuci Pontes, a PhD student at IB-UNICAMP, and a co-author of the article published in the journal Acta Ethologica.